FATHER Robert
Lombardo
directs volunteers ready to
help with the
Mobile Food
Pantry, which
serves some
250 families
on the West
Side of Chicago once a
month.

All because of GodFranciscan friar Bob Lombardo knows whom to thank for his flourishingurban ministry.

ATHER RoBERT Lombardo,C.F.R. is not one to talk muchabout himself. The 54-year-old priest quietly acknowledges in afew words that his parents still live inConnecticut, that the Ursuline sisterstaught him in grade school, and that heFBYHEIDI SCHLUMPF

Heidi Schlumpf is an associate
professor of communication
at Aurora University in the Chicago suburbs and the author
of While We Wait: Spiritual and
Practical Advice for Those Trying
to Adopt (ACTA).

is a graduate of the University of notredame.o.K., maybe he has a few extrathings to say about the sorry state ofFighting irish football.

What Lombardo really likes to talk
about is his ministry in one of Chicago’s
poorest neighborhoods and the new
religious order he is mentoring. But even
then he is reluctant to mention much
about his role in either of these major
accomplishments. Lombardo is clear: it’s
not about him.

“This is not my doing; it’s God’s do-ing,” he says, even eschewing the term